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  Shipyards jobs axe: an Independent Scotland 'could lose key Royal Navy contracts'
  
  Forecast from Cabinet ministers follows announcement that protected Glasgow shipbuilding jobs while scrapping them in Portsmouth
  
  Scotland could lose key contracts to build new Royal Navy ships if it votes in favour of independence in next year's referendum, Cabinet ministers forecast today.
  
  Their warning came after the Government announced it was protecting shipbuilding jobs in Glasgow while scrapping them in Portsmouth.
  
  The decision left David Cameron facing accusations from MPs of all parties of being motivated by shoring up the "no" vote in Scotland at the expense of jobs in England.
  
  But Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish Secretary, signalled that today's announcement could be reversed if the Scots opted to leave the United Kingdom.
  
  Mr Hammond said: "The UK has always built complex warships in the United Kingdom so that it has sovereign control over the operation of those contracts."
  
  Mr Carmichael told the Commons it would be "difficult to see how the work would go to Scotland" if it was independent.
  
  MPs from the south of England reacted furiously after the defence giant BAE Systems said shipbuilding would end at Portsmouth in mid-2014 with the loss of 940 skilled jobs.
  
  Full story Independent

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